Camping

We went camping two weekends in a row, first week down in Manti at the Palisades and the second weekend in Park City. We went to the Palisades for the Powell Family Reunion, we do this every year. And every year it's just as fun. Nick has an awesome family and they're a lot of fun to be with. We got there on Friday and Nick got in 9 holes with his cousins. Then on Saturday he went again in the morning and when he got back the family did the auction. It's a lot of fun, but man, the bidding gets out of control! You end up paying $5 for a glow in the dark bouncy ball, that only really costs 88 cents! But it's all part of the fun. The kids had a lot of fun riding bikes and catching frogs, ewww! I can't figure out how to spell my disgust for those little frogs, it's something along the lines of yuck, blah and gross. Emma was loving it, I'm not sure why. At one time the kids had caught 22 frogs. Why is this so much fun???? Then we pulled out the homemade slip and slide, the kids always love that, and Paula volunteers to hose down the kids while they're sliding. She's so cute with the kids. Then we pulled out the vanilla and chocolate pudding and they did some body painting with it. They enjoyed it a little more than we thought. Averie had her body and hair completely covered in chocolate. At least it'll wash off without staining right? It was a lot of fun to watch though.

That night we watched a slide show that Kelly had put together for the family. It was just the Powell family from very early on and very neat. Kelly did a great job. It was a lot of fun for me to see these pictures of such wonderful people I never got to meet. Thanks Kelly! Sunday morning we rounded things up, said our goodbye's to family until the next year.

Then Friday we were at it again. We went to Park City with our good friends, Dave & Lisa. Bob and Chantal joined us for a little while and the Ruttenburs came up on Saturday to visit. But the first thing on Saturday morning, Emma hops on her bike and decides she's going to take on the little dirt road hill by our spot. So she gets going as fast as she can, and totally eats it. I wasn't there, fortunately Nick and Dave were. She got a bloody nose, fat lip, scraped knee, and a lot of scrapes on her face. Poor Emma. I felt so bad. Her little lip was swollen hurting so bad she said she couldn't even drink her capri sun. :( Well, she learned to be a bit more careful and not so speedy. Overall, we had a lot of fun camping and feel like we are done for this year.

School is in

I've been slow at posting, I had a couple of problems getting the pictures from my camera to the computer. But I finally got Emma's cute school pictures on here. She was so excited to start school! We went in for the assessments on the Tuesday morning before school started and she was so upset when she had to leave 30 minutes later. I reminded her that we'd be back in an hour, so we went and got some lunch and headed to the park. I knew if we went home it would be horrible, every 5 seconds she'd ask if we were late for school or if it was time to leave. So we just played it safe and kept her entertained. She loves her new teacher and has had a lot of fun getting to know the kids in her class. She's already made a good friend and can't wait to have her over to play. I'm not really sure what to do with that. I'm new at the whole school friends thing and I know I don't want Emma going to some one's house when I don't even know their family or stuff like that. Am I sounding over-protective yet? If so, Good. I'm okay with that for now. We'll see. But for the time being, my little Diva is enjoying her new school and friends. I hope her enthusiasm stays around for a while!

Random

I know I just posted yesterday and it is SO not like me to post this soon after but I'm throwing that out the window. Just kidding. I just thought while I was on checking peoples blogs I may as well post, right? These are just some random pictures of our family this summer that I wanted to throw on here. But can I just say, I absolutely love my little family. I have the best husband who is always happy and willing to help me. And my girls are fantastic! Emma and Maggie are such happy, silly girls and they are so much fun. Ironically, after I finished typing that sentence, Maggie went into fit-mode. She wanted a sucker and I said no. No worries, I still think that she's an awesome little girl!

Sorry I'm not going to write something on each picture, so just enjoy them. I wish I had so many more pictures to put on here. Pictures of friends, and all of our family. Maybe this will encourage me to take more pictures.

Third Eye Crew

This is such a funny picture of Emma, I just had to post it. We were at Harmon's doing some grocery shopping and she was bending down to look at some fireworks. When she stood up she walked right into one of the metal signs that says "20 items or less". She had this gash on her forehead, but I'm not sure it hurt right away. She just started laughing and of course we teased her about it. When she got home and looked in the mirror she kinda got a little worried, so we slapped a band-aid on it. Nick was good enough to draw an eye on it to make it funny. You can tell from the picture that she wasn't too distraught about it. But Nick also put a band-aid on his head to make her feel better and so she drew an eye on him. What a good Dad!

Catching up

I've been slacking so much with this blog, I'm not sure how I'll get everything caught up. Oh well, here it goes! The summer has been a lot more crazy than I would like, it's slipping by so fast! I've been really busy just trying to stay on top of keeping our house clean and ready for showing. The only problem is that not many people have come. It's a little frustrating, but we realize the market is a little nuts right now. I have to admit that it's been nice to have my house always clean and looking so nice, but then I get frustrated when the girls take stuff out and make a mess. I just have to remind myself that we do still live here and that it's all just part of the game. But Nick and I did recently take a little vacation to St George with 2 other couples, no kids! It was great. Kelly was sweet enough to take our girls for the weekend. We headed down on Thursday and came back on Saturday. It was a short jam packed trip. Friday we got to go boating at Sand Hollow, my first time there, it was beautiful. The weather was great and there weren't very many people there so we had a lot of fun. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures. Sorry! When we got back, we jumped right back into the water!

Me, Emma, Maggie, Aly, Cole and the Schiess Twins went swimming at Draper pool on Monday.

Wednesday we went to classic.

Thursday we went to South Jordan Rec Center with Megan, Whitney & Brynn.

Friday back to Classic with the whole Cook clan, Kelly, Garrett & Averie & the Ruttenbur family. We have been swimming all week and I know my girls have been loving it! I'm sure you've noticed that Emma isn't anywhere to be found in these pictures. But please don't worry, I knew where she was and she was always safe, but never still enough for a picture. She didn't think she had time to stop and smile, too much to do...too little time. But I can always count on Maggie being there, she loves the camera! Saturday night we went to my cousin, Cami's, reception. It was in her Aunt's backyard and was beautiful! Emma had so much fun dancing the whole time with Cami's friends. And we had a lot of fun chatting with all of the relatives. My Grandma even caught the bouquet. She swears she's going to marry her boyfriend Reldon. The great part about that story is that he doesn't even know he's her boyfriend and I'm sure would be floored to know she's thinking of marrying him. Grandma....always good for a laugh. Over all, we've had a great summer, so far..... :)

Maggie's Birthday

I can't believe that Maggie is 2! It's truly amazing how fast our little ones grow up. We just had Emma's birthday in May and I was remembering when she was born and what a fun baby she was and is now such a grown up girl. Now I'm doing the same for my Mag-pie! She's finally 2 and ready to start that fun stage, the TERRIBLE TWO'S. I'm really not looking forward to that. She's such a cute and silly little girl. She loves to tease and be teased and loves to play games. She still isn't talking a whole lot yet, but she's seemed to learn quickly to tell Emma to stop crying and go to her room. It's pretty funny. Every little girl is either Emma or Ana, her little friend. I've loved being able to be home while going through the baby stuff with Maggie. I missed a lot of that with Emma having to work. She is such a special little girl and is such a blessing in our lives. We love you lots little Mag-pie! Happy Birthday!!!

Congrats to the Grad!

Congrats to Aly who just graduated from Hillcrest on Tuesday, June 3rd. She barely made it, the night before graduation her dumb counselor, with whom she's been having major struggles with, called and said that she didn't finish her biology class from her sophomore year. Okay, so Aly and mom go into freak out mode and figure a little prayer couldn't hurt. So Aly decides that she will go look through her things. Amazingly she finds her bubble sheet completed and graded test from her biology class from 2 years ago. So she turns it into the dumb counselor and she gets the okay to walk at graduation. What a relief. She didn't want to go to the graduation ceremony but Mom made her. It was actually kind of fun. Every time Mari & I cheered the kid sitting 2 rows in front would cringe and give a really weird look. It was hilarious. So we started cheering for anyone whose name sounded familiar. Eventually he stopped freaking out, boring. But that's when the beach balls started flying, literally. There were probably 20 beach balls, not all at the same time. The teachers did their best to stop it, but eventually gave up. Except one teacher who was very angry about it and would slaughter the ball if he got it. It was hilarious. Even the crowd got into it and boo'd every time he snatched another ball. Very entertaining. Anyway, back to Aly. We just want her to know how proud of her we all are. She's such a sweet and sassy girl! My girls just adore Aly and Emma was really sad today because she knew Aly was going on her graduation trip. Thanks for being such a great sister and a wonderful aunt. I hope you know how special you are and what a blessing you are in our lives. Love you Aly!